Atlantis gently
docked with the International Space Station this morning over southern
China, setting the stage for the installation of a 13 1/2 ton truss
structure to the complex tomorrow and the ultimate expansion of the
ISS to the length of a football field.

Commander Mike
Bloomfield guided Atlantis to a linkup with the forward docking port
of the station's Destiny Laboratory at 11:05 a.m. Central time as the
two vehicles sailed at an altitude of 240 statute miles. The docking
culminated a textbook rendezvous executed by Bloomfield and Pilot Steve
Frick. As Atlantis docked, Expedition Four Flight Engineer Dan Bursch,
a Navy Captain, rang the ISS ship’s bell to greet the arriving shuttle
crew.

About two hours
later, at 1:07 p.m. Central time as the two craft flew over New Zealand,
hatches swung open between Atlantis and the station, and the ten crew
members greeted one another inside Destiny, marking the arrival of the
first visitors for Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight
Engineer Carl Walz and Bursch since they entered the ISS in December
for the start of their six-month mission.

After a safety
briefing for the shuttle astronauts by Onufrienko, the two crews began
to transfer gear for the first spacewalk tomorrow by Steve Smith and
Rex Walheim as well as experiments to be housed in Destiny.

Ellen Ochoa joined
Bursch to brush up on procedures for the use of the station’s Canadarm2
robotic arm tomorrow which will be employed to grapple and unberth the
13 ˝ ton S0 (S-Zero) Truss from Atlantis’ cargo bay for mating to a
capture device at the top of Destiny. Smith, Walheim, Jerry Ross and
Lee Morin will conduct four spacewalks to electrically and structurally
mate the S-Zero to Destiny over the next week. Ochoa maneuvered the
arm and verified it is in good working order to support the S-Zero operations
on Thursday.

Smith and Walheim
set up all the equipment in the Quest Airlock on the ISS from which
they will mount the first of the four spacewalks to deploy two of the
four mounting struts to Destiny and to bring power to the new truss
from the U.S. Laboratory. Ochoa is scheduled to grapple the S-Zero around
5 a.m. Central time with the first spacewalk set to get underway around
10 a.m.

Atlantis and the
ISS are in excellent shape, orbiting the Earth every ninety minutes
in an orbit inclined 51.6 degrees to either side of the Equator.

The two crews began
an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 Central time this evening and will
be awakened at 3:44 Thursday morning for the fourth day of the mission.

On Friday, April
12, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe will deliver an address on future
agency policy entitled, “Pioneering the Future”, originating from Syracuse
University. The address will be seen on NASA Television beginning at
1 p.m. Central time.

The next STS-110
mission status report will be issued Thursday morning after crew wake
up, or earlier, if events warrant.

The JSC newsroom
is now closed and will reopen at 3:30 a.m. Thursday.

###

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